R.I. Superior Court judge shuts down Providence scrapyard pending fire prevention review

Providence Superior Associate Justice Brian Stern listens to arguments on a motion by the attorney general's office to shut down Rhode Island Recycled Metals LLC on Friday, July 12, 2024.(Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)

A south Providence scrapyard can’t reopen until its court-appointed supervisor submits recommendations for preventing and mitigating fires, Rhode Island Superior Court Associate Justice Brian Stern ordered on Friday.

Stern’s granting of a temporary restraining order comes two days after a fire broke out at Rhode Island Recycled Metals LLC, choking the air with smoke and potentially harmful chemicals detected across the city and into Pawtucket, according to expert testimony filed with the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General.

“The dangers occurring at property are not happening in a vacuum,” Stern said Friday. “The court’s principal concern is the safety and wellbeing of the community surrounding the defendants.”

The cause of the fire which began shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday is still under investigation, but preliminary reports from the Providence Fire Department “could not rule out” spontaneous ignition of combustible materials like liquid propane gas and scooter batteries, Alison Carney, assistant attorney general, said.

Wednesday’s fire was the second fire in three months at the Allens Avenue scrapyard. A cause for the April 10 conflagration was not able to be determined, though company employees suggested it could have been set deliberately by trespassers, according to a report by the Providence Fire Department. There were also fires at the scrapyard in 2018 and 2021, according to court documents.

“We appreciate Judge Stern’s decision recognizing the inherent danger in allowing Rhode Island Recycled Metals to continue operating in a manner that has proven unsafe for Providence community members, particularly those in South Providence,” Attorney General Peter F. Neronha said in a statement Friday afternoon. “The Court’s decision to grant our motion, thereby shutting down operations for the foreseeable future, will ensure that South Providence won’t have to continue to bear the burden of significant health risks while this business figures out if it can operate safely.”

Patrick Sweeney, a spokesperson for the company, also expressed support for the judge’s decision in a separate statement.

“The Court expanded the scope of its Special Master to evaluate best practices of RIRM and oversee the implementation of the same to ensure reasonable risk management controls are in place prior to reopening.,” Sweeney said. “Said practices and procedures are already being implemented as we speak. RIRM anticipates, within one week, our new safety plan will be complete along with employee training and any and all necessary equipment we may need on the site. It is our expectation that these additional steps will mitigate any events in the future. We look forward to keeping the public abreast of these actions.”

State regulators with the attorney general’s office and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management first sought even harsher measures in the wake of the fire, asking a court to shut down operations for a longer period and potentially, thrusting the company into receivership, according to dual motions filed in Providence County Superior Court on Thursday.

Stern pushed off decisions on these requests for “extreme remedy,” citing the need for more thorough review and hearings. For now, he charged an existing, court-appointed special master helping oversee the company’s environmental cleanup plans with issuing a report of recommendations on how the company can improve fire prevention and mitigation practices.

Community leaders and elected officials celebrated the decision as an important step in the decadeslong efforts to address disruptive and damaging industrial activities along Providence’s waterfront, including at Rhode Island Recycled Metals.

“It took over a decade to drive the court to say the health and wellbeing of the community is its concern,” Providence City Councilor Pedro Espinal said after the hearing. “It’s a small victory, but a big step.”

Yet Espinal, and others, are still pushing for harsher and more permanent penalties given the company’s troubled history of pollution and failure to comply with court orders.

“This court has tried all other manners of remedy to get RIRM into the kind of corporate citizenship and stewardship that leads to a responsible corporation that complies with environmental regulations and does not have frequent fires on its property,” Assistant Attorney General Sarah Rice said in oral arguments before Stern Friday. “Despite the continued, intense, and good faith efforts, for more than a decade, of the Special Master, the State, and this Court to coax, hand-hold, and force RIRM toward compliance at every step, compliance is not on the horizon.”

State regulators have been locked in battle with the company since 2010, a year after it opened along the city waterfront. The earliest notices of violation issued by DEM centered on untreated stormwater runoff spilling into the Providence River and taking apart and recycling old boats without prior state permission. After several years of back-and-forth, the company in 2013 agreed to clean up its act. At least, in writing,

A little less than two years later, regulators took the company to court for failing to comply with the terms of its 2013 agreement. In 2016, as noncompliance continued, the court appointed a special master, Richard Land, to oversee marine and land environmental remediation.

While the company has made some progress under Land’s watchful eye, including removing three of four tugboats submerged along the riverbed, it has failed to finish the task, or to complete landslide cleanups. Meanwhile, the frequent fires have clouded the air and water anew, sending oil and debris into the Providence River and potentially toxic chemicals into the air, according to air and water quality reports included in the court documents.

In December, DEM issued a violation notice and an accompanying $25,000 fine to the company for failing to submit required planning documents for handling and properly disposing of hazardous materials, according to documents obtained by Rhode Island Current. The company appealed the notice to DEM’s administrative tribunal days later; the case remains pending before the appeals division as of Friday, according to Amanda Cantrell, a DEM spokesperson.

“We stand ready to hold RI Recycled Metals accountable and compel correction of the environmental violations at the site,” Terry Gray, DEM director, said in a statement on Friday. That is what our community deserves.”

Separately, the city of Providence sued the company in April, days before the fire, arguing it has been illegally operating without a license since 2014, according to the complaint filed in Providence County Superior Court. A May court hearing on the city’s request to temporarily halt operations through a preliminary injunction was canceled, and has not been rescheduled, according to online court records. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 9.

The company also owed the city nearly $160,000 in back taxes, WPRI-12 reported in March.

The predominantly low-income and minority residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the industrial waterfront have long been exposed to the damaging effects of the operations, evidenced in part through the disproportionately high rate of pediatric asthma emergency room visits coming from these neighborhoods, according to Rhode Island Department of Health data from 2019 cited in court testimony.

All of which is proof, according to Rice, that the special master is not enough. She argued for a court-appointed receiver who would step directly into day-to-day operations and finances, holding the company’s feet to the fire and ideally, preventing reopening until hazards had been addressed.

But the company pushed back, insisting in court documents and oral arguments on Friday that the four fires in six years was hardly out of the ordinary for similar facilities nationwide.

Instead, Gerard Decellis, attorney for the company, accused state regulators of trying to make an example of Rhode Island Recycled Metals for political gain,

“It’s campaign season and the attorney general has a history of attacking the ports if nothing else will do,” Decellis said.

He also inferred that state regulators had been waiting for a chance to jump down the company’s throat, pointing to the lengthy court filings including expert testimony by public health and air quality experts.

“These weren’t prepared overnight,” he said. “This is a sneak attack.”

Stern did not acknowledge these arguments in his decision, instead focusing his ruling on the most recent fire and the need to establish baseline best practices and mitigation measures. A future court hearing, which had not been scheduled as of Friday afternoon, will offer a chance for more thorough review of long-term solutions, including, potentially, a move into receivership.

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